The Most Absurd Beauty Trends from Times Gone By

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I'm sure you're already using a bunch of creams and serums at home to help you achieve Flawless skin there are so many different brands and types of products out there that it's even hard to choose one well women in ancient Rome however didn't have that many options instead what they used was sweat and to add to the grossness of it all it was not their own back in those days Gladiators were viewed to be symbols of fierce power who dazzled Roman ladies so their sweat would be scraped from their bodies using a special metal tool called a "strigil" and sold inside small pots outside the arena some bought it as souvenirs some would wear it as perfume and others would apply it as a form of face cream to smoothen the appearance of their skin however one important thing to be mentioned here is the fact that most of the time this unusual ingredient was available to wealthy or aristocratic women because of how expensive they were wearing any type of makeup was thought to be an indication of belonging to the lower class and was deemed dishonorable so applying sweat to their face was one of the few ways wealthy women thought would enhance their natural beauty.

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But wait ancient Rome had even more freaky Trends as if sweat was not disgusting enough another Beauty ritual of Roman ladies included leeches they would ferment them in vinegar for several months and apply this potion to their hair funny thing is this actually worked it would help them achieve a darker color.

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Now they don't say the eyes are the windows to the soul for nothing the eye area also had its share of bizarre beauty trends throughout history take ancient Greek ladies for example they were rocking the unibrow look long before Americans you see ancient Greece was a tough place to live if you didn't have an appearance that fulfilled the beauty standards of the time ancient Greeks believe that physical Beauty was directly correlated to internal beauty so if they thought a person was good-look they considered them to be morally good too but those who were deemed to be ugly ducklings were viewed as lacking character in manners then came the famous mathematician Pythagoras who developed the golden ratio Formula it stated that balance and symmetry were linked to Beauty in everything accordingly symmetrical faces were considered the most beautiful and that is how the unibrow became a thing if someone's eyebrows were joined in the middle this made their face look more symmetrical therefore more beautiful in time one long brow turned into a symbol of intelligence and Purity as well and those who were not so lucky to be born with it would use dyed goat hair to close the gap in between.

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By the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance throughout history hairstyles have often been indicators of socioeconomic status or even marriage this was no different during the Middle Ages for example while young girls would wear their hair loose and long married women would keep their hair somehow hidden by wearing a veil or a hood however in addition to the regular hairstyle expectations of society ladies would also remove their eyebrows and pluck their hairlines all the way back to achieve a large and prominent forehead they would even pluck all their eyelashes to look as stylish as possible they believed that this practice would make them resemble the head of a baby therefore helping them appear more pure and innocent it supposedly made them seem more intelligent and from the upper class as well yet again those who already belonged to the upper class and had wealth also followed the trend even Queen Elizabeth would tweeze her own eyebrows to give herself an elongated forehead.

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Again during the Elizabethan era sugar had been recently discovered and it could only be imported from other territories since it was still new and people would use it for everything you can imagine from dressing vegetables to making medicinal mixtures yet it was also extremely expensive that's why you would have to be super wealthy to have access to it and ironically enough the rich who had the means to add sugar to their diet were unaware of what it can do to your teeth as a result of this if someone was wealthier their teeth were more rotten this led to the trend of women blackening their teeth on purpose to give the impression that they could afford sugar well that's going a bit far again Queen Elizabeth was one of the most famous sugar consumers and having a Never Ending sugar supply didn't help either they say her teeth were so black and so decayed because of this that people couldn't understand her speech nevertheless since it's the queen we're talking about everything she did was still seen as fashionable and was copied by all not everyone in Europe was so fond of their decaying teeth though one 17th century French Aristocrat wanted to maintain her shiny smile and her ability to have a meaningful chat with people however she took Extreme Measures for it which had devastating consequences for her in return the thing is the ancient Greek belief of the more beautiful you were on the outside the more healthy and virtuous you were on the inside was still valid during this time unfortunately she was already seen as a controversial woman who did not have a good reputation because of her many marriages so she desperately needed to do something to keep her teeth in place and to protect what was left of her social rank the thing she was suffering from was something called periodontal disease which was the result of poor dental hygiene it inflames the gums and Bones surrounding the teeth and in some cases leads them to loosen and even fall out her traumatic and stressful past also caused her to grind her teeth which didn't help either she even had a tooth replaced with an artificial one grafted from Ivory at an unknown point in her life then when her condition got way worse she wound gold wire around her false tooth and its neighbors over the years she had to tighten it constantly to stabilize everything but this practice actually further weakened the surrounding teeth .